USC Rossier School of Education

Thirty doctoral students from USC Rossier's Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership program recently attended the ASU+GSV Summit in San Diego, a sold-out gathering of educators, technologists, policymakers and investors in the edtech space.

The trip was made possible by USC Rossier Senior Fellow Doug Lynch, who raised funds to cover registration and lodging for EDL students, extending an opportunity he has offered to other USC Rossier doctoral cohorts for nearly a decade.

AI was a central focus of this year's summit, with sessions on school governance, classroom integration, personalized learning and academic research. Students left with big questions about how institutions can harness technology without losing sight of education's broader purposes.

Read their reflections:

USC Rossier doctoral students attend annual global summit on education technology At ASU+GSV, EDL students connected with leaders across education, technology and business, while exploring emerging trends in edtech, including how AI is reshaping teaching and learning.

From a kindergarten teacher in Oakland to a second-year PhD student, Reina Kang has learned that every life experience is meaningful to the classroom.

Her journey has been a "romantic comedy" of sorts, a mix of things outside her control where all she can do is laugh, and delving deep into the aspects of education she really cares about.

By being vulnerable with her colleagues, she’s unlearned the idea that she is the only one worried or hopeful. Instead, she finds moments of respite by watching the sunset or connecting with family, honoring the "season" she is in and reminding herself that we are all human in this process.

Educational psychology has long been shaped by exclusionary hierarchies.

A new handbook co-edited by Jessica DeCuir-Gunby offers a different vision: scholarship, practice, policy, teaching and research design that is both informed by and empowering of social justice.

DeCuir-Gunby, the Robert H. Naslund Chair in Curriculum and Teaching and executive director of the USC Race and Equity Center, co-edited the Handbook of Race, Equity, and Asset-Based Research in Educational Psychology with Francesca A. López and DeLeon L. Gray. The handbook is part of the Routledge Educational Psychology Handbook Series.

Last month, DeCuir-Gunby joined her co-editors for a free public conversation on asset-based pedagogy and culturally responsive teaching, part of an ongoing 8-part APA series. The recording is now live, link in the comments.

Find the handbook: https://bit.ly/43Nuw6q

To our LGBTQ+ community, happy Pride Month.

Three decades. College access. Institutional change.

William Tierney, founding director of the USC Pullias Center for Higher Education, has been named a recipient of the 2026 USC Faculty Lifetime Achievement Award. Over more than three decades at USC, he directed the Pullias Center for 25 years and devoted his scholarship to college access for underrepresented youth.

Full story at the link below.

Pullias Center Founding Director William Tierney awarded USC Faculty Lifetime Achievement Award News & Insights All News & Insights Pullias Center Founding Director William Tierney awarded USC Faculty Lifetime Achievement Award Faculty News Pullias Center Founding Director William Tierney awarded USC Faculty Lifetime Achievement Award By Sheryl MacPhee Published on May 27, 2026 USC Pullias Cen...

Jackson Drumgoole EdD '23 spent 29 years in the U.S. Army and earned his doctorate studying empathy as a catalyst for change. Now he's building something he dreamed about as a teenager: a place where young people aging out of foster care can land safely.

Bridge Builder Communities opens in Augusta, Ga., this October. Twenty-five tiny homes. Wraparound services ranging from mental health counseling to job apprenticeships. And a coalition of local grandparents who've already made 90 quilts for the first residents.

"Access to adequate housing is a part of human dignity," Drumgoole says.

Click the link below to read his full story.

A mission decades in the making Drawing on his doctoral studies at USC Rossier and nearly three decades in the U.S. Army, Jackson Drumgoole is developing Bridge Builder Communities, a housing and wraparound support initiative for Georgia youth aging out of the foster care system.

Today we pause in remembrance of those who lost their lives in military service.

We honor their lives and reflect on the lasting impact of their absence across families and communities.

In 1924, a plague broke out in Los Angeles. Most people left. Nora Sterry didn't.

A USC Rossier-trained educator, she walked into the quarantine zone, set up a kitchen, and spent two weeks feeding families who had nowhere else to turn.

She came to Macy Street School in Chinatown with ideas shaped by USC Professor Emory Bogardus and turned a struggling school into a community lifeline.

She wasn't alone. USC was training an entire generation of educators like her.
They called her reforms controversial. By the 1930s, they were standard in every public school in the country.

For 100 years, USC Rossier's people have been in the community. And sometimes, in the quarantine zone.